The site, in the north Indian town of Ayodhya, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, is the site of a 16th century mosque, the Babri Masjid, and is also believed by Hindus to be the birthplace of the god Ram. Read More »

Last year in April, The Wall Street Journal started India Real Time, a blog brimming with analysis and insight into Indian developments for a global audience. Like all new projects, it started off with a lot of brainstorming—and some apprehension. The endeavor, as we’ve previously said, was not only to help readers make sense of the day’s news, but to provide them another way to look at it. Sometimes that has meant serious analysis—and sometimes analysis that’s a little less serious. It also means balancing what we know folks want to read about, with what we think they need to know about India.

It’s been a year now and IRT has gathered a following, with a little help from some major news events, including a major court verdict last year, U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to India, a spate of corruption scandals and there was one other little thing…now what was it? Ah yes: the World Cup.

After successfully weathering last year’s verdict on the claims made by Hindu and Muslim groups to the site of a medieval mosque in the northern India town of Ayodhya, India on Tuesday faces another judgment in an incident that triggered widespread religious violence.

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A file photo of the 2002 riots in Gujarat. A special court in the city of Ahmedabad will issue its verdict on Tuesday in connection with the train fire that preceded the riots.

The burning of a carriage of the Sabarmati Express near the town of Godhra, in the western state of Gujarat, nine years ago left almost 60 people dead, many of them Hindu activists returning from the town of Ayodhya. The fire set off days of rioting in the state in which at least 1,000 people, the majority of them Muslim, were killed.

On Tuesday, a special court in the city of Ahmedabad that has been carrying out the trial in jail, will issue its verdict on 79 men who are charged with criminal conspiracy and murder in connection with the train fire, senior city police official Satish Sharma said. Read More »

We looked back at all the news posts we wrote since the India Real Time blog was launched in April to see what our readers were most interested in. Here are the top 10 most-read India Real Time posts of 2010.

Can one gauge a country’s mood by the turnout at seminars organized by think-tanks? Maybe, maybe not, but India Real Time certainly saw a divide between speakers and the audience on the Ayodhya issue at a seminar Monday.

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Hindu activists on Monday shouted slogans in New Delhi as they called for the construction of a temple at Ayodhya.

Fireworks light the night sky above the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium as the opening ceremony comes to an end.

If you woke up this morning feeling better than usual, optimistic and energetic, humming to the songs from the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, with a skip in your step, then you probably were not alone. Ok quite apart from the Games anthem that sounded a bit like a Guns n Roses tune gone rancid (sorry A.R. Rahman) and the booing and catcalls to Suresh Kalmadi which were in questionable taste, the kick-off to the Games by any measure was a high octane thrill for the viewer.

Whether you were lucky enough to be live at the ceremony or like me glued to your television set, the nation shared a moment together. It was as though the drummers that opened the ceremony seemed to capture the mood of a nation on the move, with places to go and things to do.

India Real Time presents a round-up of commentary and analysis of one of the key news events this week – the Babri Masjid verdict by the Allahabad High Court. The decision saw a three-bench judge ruling Thursday that the site be divided into three parts in the latest phase of a 60-year-long dispute over the ownership of the Ayodhya land which is now almost certainly headed to the Supreme Court.

Associated Press/Rajesh Kumar Singh

A man reads a newspaper as a policeman patrols a street in Ayodhya, Thursday.

The Asian Age in an edit said, “…the Allahabad high court has perhaps delivered the only possible verdict it could have on the vexed case that has dragged on for 60 long years.” It further stated that the verdict “harked back more to the long tradition of Hindus and Muslims worshipping together.”

And while the general drift of the directive was that the land belonged to all three claimants, “..the verdict has sought to reinstate the remarkable tradition of amity which prevailed in the area from the 19th century before the entire issue was complicated by political parties and religious outfits for their own narrow partisan ends.” Read More »

Home Minister P. Chidambaram said that the government was pleased with the people of India’s ‘dignified’ response to the verdict.

The Babri Masjid verdict issued by the Allahabad High Court, dividing the sacred site into three, was complex and hard to interpret given that it involved different judgments from three different judges.

But Home Minister P. Chidambaram suggested Friday that the media spend less time trying to figure out the verdict’s implications since, he noted, the status quo at the site will be maintained for the next three months and the Supreme Court is almost certain to decide the issue in the end.

He did knock down one suggested interpretation that the verdict – which grants the central dome of the mosque, where Hindu idols have been placed, to the Hindu litigants – could be viewed as a justification for the destruction of the Babri Masjid by a mob in December 1992. Read More »

A Mumbai policeman controls traffic as Indian Muslims attend a peace rally, Monday.

Following the Ayodhya verdict Thursday afternoon, the number of private vehicles, autos and taxis plying Mumbai’s roads gradually decreased. And, while the city’s offices did not see an official shut down, many employees were allowed to take half a day off in anticipation of the verdict.

India’s commercial capital was deeply affected in the aftermath of the 1992 destruction of a mosque on the site by a Hindu mob and saw riots that claimed thousands of lives.

The city appeared resolute not to repeat the events that took place almost two decades ago and so far has seen a peaceful, if closely supervised, calm. Read More »

About India Real Time

India Real Time offers analysis and insights into the broad range of developments in business, markets, the economy, politics, culture, sports, and entertainment that take place every single day in the world’s largest democracy. Regular posts from Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires reporters around the country provide a unique take on the main stories in the news, shed light on what else mattered and why, and give global readers a snapshot of what Indians have been talking about all week. You can contact the editors at indiarealtime(at)wsj(dot)com.